


take me back

by lesbianpatrick



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: Angst, Crack, Crack Fic, Heavy Angst, Hiatus, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Ohhh boy, i guess, i guess?, its pretty heavy lmao, ok i think that's it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2016-08-05
Packaged: 2018-07-29 14:40:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7688326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbianpatrick/pseuds/lesbianpatrick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>He wonders, occasionally, if maybe there's a bit of Pete left in him, a tiny piece that's lodged itself in his chest. A piece that is crying out in anguish, wishing to be reunited with the person it belongs to.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Patrick would love to help that little piece out, but he really can't.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	take me back

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kxllington](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kxllington/gifts).



> whoa!!! a writing!!! aren't I great!!!
> 
> no but seriously I've had no motivation I'm sorry I haven't been posting 
> 
> The other day Kell told me to "write something during the hiatus", and that correlated with an idea I already had, and thus, this was born 
> 
> So thanks Kell
> 
> I'm seriously so proud of this oops, I hope people like it as much as I do
> 
> Enjoy!

The first time it happens, it's 2005 and Patrick is just returning to the hotel room he's sharing with Pete after a heated debate with the guy at the front counter over room pricing. (He'd discovered that the guy had given them their two rooms for the price of four, which, no. Patrick wasn't about to fall for that.) It's around midnight when he finally shuts the door lightly behind him, hoping he doesn't wake anyone up. The joke seems to be on him, because Pete is lying awake in bed, not even under the sheets yet. 

"Go to sleep, Pete." Patrick says, yawning.

Pete makes no attempt to actually respond, just makes a noise of acknowledgment to let Patrick know that he'd heard him. 

"Seriously." Patrick says, turning to face Pete, who's just staring at the ceiling.

Pete shrugs, makes a couple vague hand motions, then turns to Patrick and raises an eyebrow. 

Patrick groans. He doesn't have to ask to know what Pete wants. 

"Fine, you idiot." He mutters, kicking off his shoes and watching as they fly across the room and uselessly hit the wall before falling to the floor. Then he proceeds to walk over to Pete's bed and lay down next to him. He isn't too big a fan of doing this, but if it will make Pete go to sleep, then he's willing to. 

Pete smiles at him, the shine of his teeth visible in the dark room, and wraps his arms around Patrick's waist. Patrick shifts uncomfortably, but makes no move to actually get up. Pete pulls him closer, and then suddenly there's a strange and indescribable sensation that can only almost be described as sinking, or as the feeling as you plummet down the big hill of a roller coaster, and then suddenly it's over. 

Patrick blinks. He's lying on his back now. He turns to look for Pete, but he can't see him. What the hell?

"What the hell?"

Patrick instinctually slaps a hand over his mouth, because wait. He didn't say that. Except he must have, because those words had slipped out from his lips...he thinks. It didn't even sound quite like his voice. 

Patrick shakily sits up, looking around again, and lets his hand fall away from his mouth, just in time for the words "What the fuck is going on?" to slip out unprompted as well. 

Patrick tries not to freak out as he shakily asks, "Hello?"

Silence. He wonders if he had somehow hallucinated the unprecedented speaking. He wonders where Pete went. Maybe he's dreaming. 

Suddenly, he's getting out of bed, even though he's pretty sure he doesn't want to do that. It's just as weird as the random words flying out of his mouth, if not weirder. 

Then he's walking and suddenly he's in front of a mirror, and _no, that isn't him._

Well, kind of. It looks like he's seeing his reflection, but put through one of those WhatWouldTheirBabyLookLike.com websites. Hair a bit too short and a lot too dark, skin just a bit too tan, one eye a hazelnut brown and not his usual blue-green-yellow jumble (though one eye remains that way). Yes, it looks like he's been put through one of those websites with...

"Pete?" He manages to force out, the word coming out in a harsh whisper. 

"Shit." Comes the response, falling out of the same mouth that Patrick's previous question had. But Patrick definitely hadn't said it. 

It's sort of obvious what happened. It's not really obvious why. Patrick can't stop staring at the mirror, wondering why the hell shit like this only seems to happen to him. And Pete, he supposes. 

"How do we...can we..." Patrick begins, frowning as he tries to word the question properly. 

"Break apart?" Pete finishes slowly. Patrick just nods. Pete shrugs. "I...don't know."

Patrick wonders if he can just pull away, and break whatever connection has been formed here. He tries that, imagining that he's running away from this, pushing it away...

There's a quiet sort of popping noise and suddenly Patrick is on the ground, and when he rolls onto his back he's thankful to see Pete standing over him. 

"Huh." Pete says, blinking at Patrick. 

"Yeah." Patrick agrees, and that's that. 

This probably won't happen again. 

~*~

It happens again. 

And again, and again, and again. 

At first, it's just accidental. Sometimes when he and Pete are touching, Patrick will suddenly get that sinking roller coaster feeling and then they're...whatever they are when that happens. Patrick can't think of a word for it. In the end, he just describes it as _together._

One night Pete wonders aloud whether or not they could do it on purpose. In the end, it turns out they can. 

Now it happens even more often; never beyond the safety of a locked door, of course, but still. Sometimes they've even fallen asleep without breaking apart. It doesn't seem like it matters. 

Sometimes, when they haven't been _together_ in a while, there's a little itch. Patrick can feel it under his skin the first time they spend a week apart, and Pete admits later that he could too, so they both know it's mutual. But the itch is nothing more than an annoyance, really, and it can be resolved easily. 

It's strange, what's happening, but it's strange in a magnificent way. 

Patrick can't see a downside. 

~*~

There's a downside. 

The hiatus is hell. 

Of course, after a week, there's that itch, but that's always been there. It's happened so much that Patrick has gotten used to it, and he barely even notices. 

A few months pass, and it gets worse. 

It's a terrible itch now, and Patrick does his best not to scratch it and look like he's going insane, because it's not an itch that can be fixed by scratching, only by being _together_ , and he can't do that right now. So he has to ignore it. For the most part, that goes well. 

After a little over a year, however, it starts to _hurt._

It starts during one of his shows. At first, it's just a twinge of pain in his chest, similar to the start of a stomach ache. In fact, it's so similar to that, he doesn't even pay it any attention, assuming that it is, in fact, just a stomach ache. 

Until it gets worse. 

The twinge slowly turns into a knot of pain in his chest, constant, unending. He realizes now why it's happening. He knows exactly what he needs to do to stop it. 

But he can't. 

It reaches a point where the knot of pain unleashes a spiderweb of pain throughout his body. Everything hurts, all the time. It feels like every muscle, every joint, every vein, and every artery are crying out together. 

His voices shakes during shows as he battles the tears that constantly sit on the edge of his eyes. No one says anything, but he knows they notice. They always notice. 

He wonders, occasionally, if maybe there's a bit of Pete left in him, a tiny piece that's lodged itself in his chest. A piece that is crying out in anguish, wishing to be reunited with the person it belongs to.

Patrick would love to help that little piece out, but he really can't. 

He can't because to do that, he needs Pete, and Pete isn't available to him right now. Pete might never be available to him again. He doesn't know. He doesn't think he wants to. 

So he suffers through the ever-worsening pain, living by the philosophy that maybe some day he'll get used to it. 

His psyche breaks before that day ever comes. 

He doesn't even remember doing it. He feels almost like his body is doing this for him of its own accord. Maybe it's being controlled by that tiny piece of Pete. Maybe he'll never know. 

Either way, what he does know is that he opens his contacts, taps a name he never expected to tap again, and opens up a text. Before he can stop himself, he's sent it. Two words. 

_It hurts._

He doesn't expect to get a response very quickly. Correction: he doesn't expect to get a response _ever_. But somehow, his phone buzzes with the reply in under a minute. 

_I know._

Patrick's breath catches in his throat. His vision blurs as his fingers stumble over the screen to make a quick reply. 

_I don't want it to hurt anymore._

There's another response almost immediately. 

_Me neither._

Patrick swallows his second thoughts and replies with one word. 

_Help._

For a while, there's no response. He wonders if this was too far. If that one word was too much. If maybe, this whole conversation has just been a mistake. 

Then...a response. 

_Are you on tour?_

Patrick frowns. In the back of his head, he already knows what that question is about, but he refuses to believe that it could be true. It's too good to be true. He replies, a hopeful feeling fluttering under the pain in his chest regardless. 

_Yes._

The next reply comes quicker than any of the others. 

_Where are you tomorrow?_

Patrick takes a deep breath and types out two letters. 

_LA_

The response is even quicker; scarily quick. As if it's been typed out and copied, ready to paste, for months. 

Maybe it has. 

_Okay, you can visit me then. If that works. Please._

Then an address. 

Patrick swallows another wave of second thoughts along with a little bit of bile and answers. 

_See you then._

~*~

He's pretty sure he's standing in front of the right house. But maybe he's not, because he swears he's been waiting here for five minutes since he rang the doorbell. Maybe Pete had given him a false address just to play around with him a little longer. Maybe Pete doesn't feel the pain. Maybe he's just leaving Patrick to die of this gut-wrenching pain, the pain of being apart. 

Patrick's thoughts continue to wander to the extremes until suddenly the door opens, and there's Pete, staring at him like he didn't expect him to show up. 

Maybe he didn't. 

For a while, the two stay in a silent standoff, daring each other to speak first. In the end, Patrick gives up first. 

"God, it hurts." He chokes out, because it's true and he can't hold the truth back any longer. 

"I know." Pete replies, and his voice is hushed, so quiet, and Patrick can detect all the pain woven subtly into it, and that makes him hurt even more, if that's even possible at this point. 

"I-could we-" He begins, afraid to finish, because a little bit of him still believes that maybe Pete's going to leave him out here, alone and hurting. 

"Yeah." Pete says, as hushed as what he'd said earlier. He holds the door open for Patrick. "Come in."

Patrick does. 

He walks through the door and looks around. It's a nice house. He's never been here before, and he's not sure if he ever will again, so he makes it his goal to take it all in now. He's vaguely aware of the door clicking shut behind him, and suddenly Pete grabs him from behind, spins him around, and pulls him into a hug. 

Patrick tenses up in surprise as Pete starts sobbing uncontrollably, burying his face in Patrick's shoulder. Patrick gets past the initial shock of the sudden physical contact, then loosens up, leaning into Pete's arms, then there's that sinking, roller coaster feeling that Patrick has missed so much, so so much, and then they're just standing there, _together_. Tears are streaming down their cheeks but it's _okay_ because this is what they needed, the pain is quickly subsiding, dissipating into nothingness, and they fall to the ground with it, bracing themselves against the ground and shaking as the tears continue to fall. 

"Fuck, I missed this." Patrick breathes out, cracking a small smile.

"I know." Pete whispers, pushing back against the ground so they fall onto their back, laying on the floor, staring up at the ceiling. 

The tears slow, and Patrick reaches up a hand to wipe away the leftover trails, then pauses when he sees the hand over their face, because he's just now recognizing the skin tone, the tone he's only ever remembered as _theirs_ , because it's so perfect and special and unique to _them_ , and he loves it and he's missed it and he's _needed_ it. 

"Are you okay?" Pete asks softly, and Patrick relishes in the words that come out in _their_ voice, from _their_ mouth, and he can't believe he managed to go so long without this. 

"No." He replies. "But I'm getting better."

"Good." Pete says, the words louder and clearer than anything else he'd said this entire time. "I think I am too." 

And for the rest of their night, they just lay there, staring at the ceiling, only occasionally talking. They don't need to say anything, though, because it's _them_ , and what they are together is something that could never be described by words.

**Author's Note:**

> when I say this, I rarely follow through, but there is a possible sequel! so if ppl like this, maybe that will happen 
> 
> thanks for reading :)


End file.
